Washington Embassy Telegram 5599 to Foreign Office, 14 August 1945, Top Secret

To commemorate the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan in August 1945, the Nuclear Vault is adding two documents to the posting: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources.

Document 91 is a British embassy telegram from 14 August 1945, portraying President Harry S. Truman weighing the possibility of a third atomic bombing in Japan, hours before he received the Japanese surrender notice.  Document 96 is the text or draft of the speech that Truman gave to the Gridiron Club dinner in December 1945, in which he discussed his role in the decision to use the bomb and its devastating consequences. Both documents have been in the open public record for years, but they are worth including by shedding further light on Truman’s thinking and his early justification…